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Crash Course in Understanding Facebook Messenger Privacy Settings

Course Details

Facebook Messenger is a handy smartphone app that separates messaging from Facebook’s other features. But when you install Messenger, it asks for permission to edit and read your text messages, record audio, and access your location data, which creates privacy concerns for some users. In this short course, Nick Brazzi will show you what settings you can adjust on the iOS and Android versions of the app, and how they will impact how Messenger runs on your device. Watch and learn if Facebook Messenger is right for you.

Reviewing privacy options and settings for Facebook Messenger

Messages are a popular feature on Facebook.Using messages you can write a message directlyto another Facebook user,which they can view privately.Messages are sort of like emailsor chat messages.They can only be seen by the peopleinvolved in the conversation.Now to be clear we’re not talking aboutregular status updates or wall posts on Facebook,just the private message system.

Recently Facebook has been making a big pushto get users to use the separate Messenger app.And it looks like that change is going to be mandatory.If you wanna send Facebook messageson your smartphone you have to use the Messenger app.

This change stirred up some controversy,especially surrounding privacy concerns.Now if you need to learn how to usethe Facebook Messenger appcheck out the Up and Running with Facebook coursewith Justin Seeley on lynda.com.

You can still send and receive Facebook messageson the Facebook website on a computer.Security and permissions are different between iPhone,Android, and the Amazon Fire Phone,so I wanna look at all three,starting with the iPhone.Here I am in the standard Facebook app.And when I tap on the messages buttonyou see something interesting.If you have not already installed the Messenger appyou’ll probably be prompted to do that here.In some cases you might see a buttonthat says not now, or remind me later,but that doesn’t happen in most cases.

In most cases you’re gonna see this.The options will be install or learn more.So really your only option is to install the app.So let’s see how that works.I’m gonna go ahead and go through the installation process,so I’ll hit install.And because I’ve already installed this app on another phoneyou can see it’s just got the little cloud icon,which lets me download the app again here on this phone.So I’ll tap that and let it install.Once it’s installed you could go ahead and launch the app,or if you’re already inside the standard Facebook appwhen you look at the messages button nowit’s changed to say Messenger.

And if I tap on that button nowit’s gonna flip me over to the Messenger app.So you can launch the app itself,or you can get to it from within the standard Facebook app.Since this is the first time I’ve usedthe app on this phoneI’m gonna need to log in.It already knows my Facebook account,so I can confirm that just by hitting continue.As you log in there’s an option to linkthe Messenger app to your phone number.This is the first privacy option that you need to consider.If you link your phone number your friends will be ableto make voice calls to your phonedirectly through the Messenger app.

There’s also an option to send freeSMS messages through the app,but of course this could be a privacy concern,you may not want people to have direct accessto you through Facebook through your phone number.So if this is an issue for youyou should simply decline to linkyour phone number to the appand everything else will work fine.To decline just hit not now down here at the bottom.It’s a very light grey,so it may be hard to see.I’m gonna confirm this by hitting skip.Now it’s worth noting that if you did set up the appand linked your phone number to the appas far as I can find there’s no wayto remove your phone number after the fact.

So just be careful when you first set up the app,and if you do not want your phone number linkedmake sure you don’t link it.I’m also gonna skip this option about text messagesjust by hitting not now.And I’m gonna go ahead and allow notifications.I’ll hit OK.But let’s talk about notifications for just a moment.This is another minor questionthat you’ll need to address.Enabling this allows the phoneto display popup notificationswhen you receive messages,even when the app isn’t running.This permission isn’t really a security risk,it’s just up to you to decide whether you want alertswhen you receive new messages in the Facebook Messenger app.

I’m gonna go ahead and allow them.Now I’m all set up and I’ll hit OK.And from here I can see all of the conversationsthat I have going on inside of messages on Facebook.Now again, I’m not gonna get too muchinto how to use the app,that’s covered in the Up and Running with Facebook coursewith Justin Seeley here on lynda.com,but I do wanna talk about some privacy settings.So let’s finish talking about those notification settings.What if you decided to change your mindabout notifications later?Well, if you wanna change thatall you need to do is close the appand switch over to settings,and you wanna go to notification center,and you’ll see a list of all of the apps on your phonethat have notifications options.

So I’m gonna scroll down and find the Messenger appand touch on that,and you can see you can adjustyour notification options right here.And if you don’t want notifications at allthen you can just go through and turn offall of these options.I’m gonna go back to the main settings screenand we’ll flip back over to the Messenger app.Back in the Messenger appI’m gonna compose a message.I can do that by hitting the new message button up here,or I can just tap on one of the peopleI’ve been having a conversation withand I can type a message to them here.

If I tap on this field right hereI can type my message.But now that I’m here typing a messageI wanna look at the location permissions,which is the biggest hot button topic here.You have the option to include your locationwhen you send a message.This will include a GPS map location,so your friends can see where you werewhen you sent this message.Now clearly this might be a problemfor some conversations,so it’s really important that you knowhow to turn this off.On my iPhone the location was off by default,but don’t take my word for that.

I suggest you double check that for yourself.Now looking at this field herewhen I’m typing a messageI can see there’s a little notification herethat tells me that I can enable location.What we’re really looking at is this smalltriangular arrow down here.If that arrow is a hollow greythat means that locations are turned off,if I tap on that buttonthat will enable locations for this conversation.But here we see a very important optionand this is part of iOS on the iPhone.It’s asking me for permission to use my current locationand that’s just the way iOS works.

You have to give each app individual permissionbefore they can access your location information.That’s why this is off by default on the iPhone.So just to see how it worksI’m gonna go ahead and hit OK,which will give my phone permission to use my locationfor the Facebook Messenger app.And now you can see the location button is a bright blue.Now I can turn this off or onfor any conversation.All I need to do is tap on that button to turn it off,tap on it again to turn it on.

And it’s really important that you take a lookand you know whether that option is on or off,so you can set it the way you want it.So it’s nice that you can disable location informationfor each conversation,but what if you wanna disablelocation permissions completely for the app?What if you never want the appto have the ability to use your location?To do that, again, we’re gonna go to the home screen,we’ll go to settings,we’re gonna go to the section here in settings on privacy,and I’m looking for location services.

And again, you’re gonna see a list of all of the appsthat have location services available.And you can see that the switch is turned onfor Facebook Messenger.If I turn this off then that will deny permissionto Facebook Messenger to use any location data at all.And this is the safest way to go.This will make it so that the Facebook Messenger appis never able to use your location.Now of course if I switch back to the Facebook Messenger appI’ll now see that the location button is dimmed out againand if I try to turn it onit’s gonna tell me that I have to go to settingsto re-enable it.

I’ll go ahead and tap OK.So that’s the location settings for the iPhone.There are a couple other privacy issuesthat we wanna take a look at,but they’re a little bit more minor.As you’re typing a messagegenerally you’re set to text.There is an option here to flip to the cameraif you wanna send photos straight from your camerathrough a message.There’s an option to access photosthat are saved in your camera roll as well.And if I tap on that buttonit’s gonna ask me for permissionsto access my camera roll.So this is another one of those permission things.

And if I decide to say OKthen I could choose a photo from my camera roll,select it, and send it through the message,and that works fine.But of course, like we saw you have to give it permission.The same is true of the microphone option.This option lets you send voice messages.And if I tap on this record buttonyou can see that it’s going to ask me for permissionto use my microphone.So again, this is one of those servicesthat you have to grant permission.In this case I’m gonna say don’t allow.

And it’s gonna give me a little bit of informationtelling me what I’m not gonna be able to doif I don’t have the microphone enabled.I’ll just hit OK.So I did give it permission to use my photos,but I did not give it permission to use the microphone.I’m gonna go to my settings againand I’m gonna take a step back,so we’re on the main privacy screen.And you can see here in privacy settingsthere is an option to go throughand enable or disable permission to use photos,as well as the microphone.

So those are the other special permissionsthat you’re gonna have to take into accountwhen deciding on your privacy settings here on the iPhone.Now let’s take a look at those settings on an Android phone.Here in the Google Play StoreI’m looking at the Facebook Messenger appand I’m gonna hit install.When I install this appI’m gonna see a warning showing meall of the app permissionsthat this app requires.And this is one of the biggest sources of controversyand debate about this app online.

This app requires a lot of permissions.As a matter of fact,if I scroll down here there’s an option to see alland there are even more listed here.Now I’m not gonna comment on what eachand every one of these app permissions mean.There’s a lot of articles onlinethat talk about this extensively,but what I do wanna do is talk aboutwhich of these app permissions you can disable,just like we saw a moment ago on the iPhone.So for now I’m just gonna hit acceptand I’m gonna let the app install.

Once you have the app all installed and set upit’ll look like this.Now just like when I set it up on the iPhoneI decided to decline the optionto link my phone number to the app.But here I can see all of the conversationsthat I have going on inside of Facebook Messenger.Now keep in mind, the menus and the settingsare a little bit different from one Android phoneto the next,but they should be similar enoughthat you should be able to find what you needbased on what we see here.I’m using the Nexus 5 phoneand we’ll also look at the Amazon Fire Phone in a moment,which runs on a modified version of Android.

So first let’s take a look at the notification settings.Some Android phones give you more or less controlover how notifications behave,but fortunately you can enable and disable notificationsright inside the Messenger app.To do that I’m gonna go to the settings buttonand you can see there are two interesting options here.I wanna take a look at notificationsand chat heads.When I go into notificationsyou can see there are several optionsfor how you want your notifications to appear.And of course if you just don’t wantany notifications at all you can turn that off up here.

I’m gonna take a step back.Chat heads is interesting.Chat heads will give you previewsof the Facebook Messenger conversations you’re havingeven when you’re not in the app.Let’s take a look at how that looks.I’m gonna go back to my messagesand I’m going to reply to a message here.And I’ll just write a quick responseto this conversation.I’ll send that.So now this particular conversation is active.

I’ll take a step back,and I’m gonna hit the home buttonto get to my main screen.Now when I get a response to the messagethat I just sentwe should see notificationsand chat heads pop up.So that’s what the notificationsand the chat heads look like.And the chat heads are neat,I can tap on them here,and I can write a response to the messagewithout actually opening up the app.I’m gonna tap outside of thisand I’m gonna go ahead and open the app,so we can look at the rest of the settings.So of course those are notificationsand you can turn those on or off right here.

Now let’s talk about the big one,location permissions.So I’m gonna go back to the conversation I was just having,I’ll tap on that, tap on the field to type a message,and just like on the iPhonethere’s a button that indicates whether locationis turned on or off.The button is a little bit different on Android,it looks like a circular target button.Now this is the most important thing you have to recognize,the locations option is turned on by default on Android.On iPhone it is not on by default,but on Android it is.

So if you just jump in and start using the appyou will be sending your GPS locationto anybody you send messages to.So how do we turn that off?Well, it’s very similar to an iPhone.To turn it off for an individual conversationjust tap on the button hereand it turns grey.Turn it back on just by tapping on itand it turns blue.But that’s only for one conversation at a time.What if you wanna disable location servicesentirely for the app?I’m gonna take a step back,go to settings in the app,and you can see here that location is enabled.

All I need to do is turn off location hereand when I go back to my conversation,when I tap to type in my messageyou’ll see that location is off.If I try to turn it onit’s gonna tell me that locationis turned off for the app entirelyand it’ll ask me whether I wanna turn it on.So I’m gonna go ahead and hit not now.I’m gonna leave location settings turned off.Now there is another way to handle location issueson an Android phone.To do that I’m gonna take a step backand I’m gonna go to the home screen,I wanna go into the settings for my phone.

Inside of settings I’m looking for the categoryof location.Here in location I can see a listof all of the apps that are using locationand I’m not able to disable that individually for each appon the Nexus 5,but what I am able to dois turn off the master switch for location.This turns off location settings entirelyfor any app running on my phone,but it’s important to recognizethat there are some appsthat you might wanna use locations for,especially the Maps app for example.

And remember that you can still turn off locationsdirectly in the Facebook Messenger app.Now if I go back to the Facebook Messenger appand I go back to my conversationand I tap to type a messageyou see just like on the iPhone we’ve got buttonsto access the camera, as well as my photo roll,and I can access the microphone.But it’s very interesting to see herethat you are not asked to give permissionfor the phone to use your camera rollor your microphone.This is just not an option that you havethe ability to adjust on an Android phone.

So again, keep this in mind as you’re decidingwhether you wanna use this app.The app is automatically given permissionto use your photos and your microphone.Now some Android devices and the Amazon Fire Phonegive you a little more control over notificationsand location permissions.But there’s one issue here with location settingsthat I wanna be aware of.So I’m gonna switch over to the Amazon Fire Phone.On the Amazon Fire Phonethe Messenger app in generalworks the same as it does on the Android phonewe saw a moment ago.

One interesting thing that I’ve noticedis that it does not seem to force meto install the Messenger appwhen I access messages inside the Facebook app.Of course that may change in the future,but you can see here I am in the standard Facebook appand I’m able to access messages just fine.But I do have the Messenger app installed,so I’m gonna go ahead and open that up.And like I said, it looks pretty much the sameas it does on any other Android device.We can go into the settingsand we can make the same settings adjustments right here.

I’ve got my notifications and I’ve got my location settings,but there’s something very importantthat I wanna talk about with locations.This is something that I found is specificto the Amazon Fire Phone,but it may work the same on other Android devices,so it’s good to have an eye out for it.I’m gonna go into the settings here on the Fire Phone,and I’m gonna go to the section on location services.And there’s an option here to configurelocation based services for your individual applications.

I’m gonna tap that.And if I scroll down here I can see a listof all of the applications on my phonethat use location services.And I can come in here and I can find Messengerand I can turn location services off.The idea here is that now Messengerwill not be able to use any location services,but this is what I want to warn you about.In my experience with the Amazon Fire Phonethis does not work the way I would have expected it to work.Let me show you what I mean.

Now that I have location services turned off for MessengerI’m gonna go back to the Messenger appand here in the settings for MessengerI can see that location services are still enabledand if I go to my conversationsand I tap to continue this conversation,go here to write a message,I can see that location is enabled for this conversation.So the location settings inside of the Messenger apphere on the Fire Phone override the location settingson the system settings for the phone.

This is importantand you wanna make sure that you double checkall of your location settingsto make sure you know whether you’re sending your locationwhen you send your messages.It’s worth noting that if I go back to settingsand I go to notificationsand into manage notificationsI can change app notifications individuallyfor each app here as well.So I’ll scroll to Messengerand you can see I can change all sorts of optionsfor the notifications.

But again, I think it’s really importantthat you double check how the app actually behavesjust in case the settings in the appoverride the system settings that you adjust here.Security and privacy are really important issuesto be aware of with any smartphone app,but I think Facebook is a systemwhere you should be particularly aware.It’s also worth noting that location servicesdrain your battery faster,so location might be more than a privacy concern for you.But please get familiar with your phone’s settingsand make informed decisions about how you use your appsand how you communicate with people over the internet.